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There are no plans for a Final Fantasy 14 and 16 crossover... yet

Naoki Yoshida, producer for both FF14 and FF16, was asked about a potential crossover during a Friday evening press conference.

Ozzie Mejia

July 31, 2023 6:00 AM

Square Enix

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Square Enix's Naoki Yoshida is one of the busiest men in gaming. In addition to his duties overseeing the ongoing world of Final Fantasy 14 Online, he also pulled double duty working as producer for the recently released PlayStation 5-exclusive Final Fantasy 16. With his work on FF16 seemingly finished, there was naturally some curiosity as to whether Yoshida would want to bring these two stories together in some fashion. The question was formally presented to Yoshida during a Friday evening press conference following the first day of the Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival 2023. The answer of whether a crossover is coming appears to be no, but it may not be no forever.

"The producer for Final Fantasy 16 happens to have the same name as I do," Yoshida said jokingly when addressing the question from Eurogamer. "I think we are nearing the conclusion of our discussions, but we are unable to divulge on it right now. I'm hoping that we can reveal some kind of information within this calendar year."

Crossovers between Final Fantasy 14 and current standalone titles in the franchise are not unprecedented. Final Fantasy 14 Online first received some special Final Fantasy 15 side missions in 2018, nearly two years after FF15's release. It wouldn't be the last time the two games crossed over, as FF15 lead character Noctis Lucis Caelum showed up for a special collaboration quest less than six months later.

It may be some time before Square Enix decides to bring together the stories of its long-running MMORPG and the epic story of Clive Rosfield. However, if such a crossover were to be announced this year, as Yoshida hopes, it would likely be during October's Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival in London. Yoshida has already promised more information on the upcoming Dawntrail expansion there.

It would certainly be fun to see Final Fantasy 14 and 16 collide in some fashion, though 16's PlayStation exclusivity may present a complication with the recent announcement that FF14 would soon jump to Xbox. Whether all of it will come together neatly remains to be seen, but if we see any more exciting announcements about Final Fantasy 14 Online, we'll be sure to cover them here at Shacknews.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?